Dana Carvey / The Wallflowers
October 21, 2000


[PRE-SHOW THOUGHTS]
Dana Carvey is one of the funniest people alive. I was pretty excited when I
first heard that he was hosting SNL this week. He has already hosted the show
two other times after leaving and those were some very funny episodes. Plus,
he has done several other hilarious guest appearances on the show since then,
so this should be a good show.

[OPENING] Third 2000 Presidential Debate
As funny as this was, it still can't touch the incredible first Debate sketch
from the Rob Lowe episode. Every week the make-up department seems to make
changes to Chris Parnell as Jim Lehrer. It looks like Will Ferrell has picked
up afew tips from Dana on his George Dubya impression this week. I'd say Ana
Gasteyer most accurately portraited one of the undecided voters. Funny moments
came from Dana when George Sr. kept trying to pass himself as a different
undecided voter. I was started to wonder if we'd see Dana in the opening
sketch. Dana didn't have as many funny lines in this though, but his crazy
Bush mannerisms made up for it.
Grade: B

[MONTAGE]
I think SNL is just gonna leave the Robert Smigel cartoons in the credits no
matter if one will appear on the show or not. So far, it seems that way,
unless they had one planning, but it didn't make it past Dress Rehersal.
Either way.

[MONOLOGUE] Dana Carvey
Dana had some really funny stuff in here. Dana's little adlibbing with the
audience in the beginning was kind of funny. If I hadn't watched 'Late Night
w/ Conan O'Brien' afew nights before this aired I would have found alot of
Dana's material much funnier, since he did most of these jokes on Conan,
Thursday. But, he did slip in afew news ones though, which were also pretty
funny. So that was good. One other thing, what was with all the camera
angles?
Funny line: "If there is no COMMUNITY CHEST, you must not ARREST!" -- Dana
Carvey as Johnny Cochran
Grade: B+

[COMMERCIAL] Magic Mouth
Oh great, fart jokes. Oh well, at least we got a commercial parody this week.
C'mon writers, I know you could do better than this. Well, at least I hope so.
This did have afew funny one-liners so I'll give alittle extra points for
that.
Funny line: "Noone knows more about Politics than Bill Maher." -- The magic
mouth
Grade: C

[SKETCH] Delicious Dish
This is one of the funnier sketches SNL does. Good to see it back again. Funny
line about the Great Pumpkin being one of Molly's religious beliefs. Dana's
voice was also alittle funny. Still, I've seen better NPR sketches.
Funny line: "Halloween is one of my favorite Holidays. I have such happy
memories of dressing up and going door-to-door and collecting for UNICEF." --
Molly Shannon as Terry Rialto
Grade: B

[SKETCH] Church Chat
Good to see this sketch back again as well. Dana did this the last time he
hosted as well. I knew who all the guests on this would be because Dana
mentioned this on Conan as well. Not as good as I expected it to be but still
pretty good. Chris Kattan reprises his role as Anne Heche once again. Hmm..
The last time he did this Mark McKinney was still on the show. The Ann He-She
line was pretty good. It was also pretty funny when the zoomed in on the
Church Lady's reaction to one of Eminem's songs. The "Real Church Lady" song
towards the end was sort of funny in a weird way.
Funny Lines: "Look at me mommy, I'm a sugar slut in a devil mask!" -- Dana
Carvey as the Church Lady .. "Okay Ann, I wouldn't want you to have to get
dehydrated and start knocking on doors again." Church Lady to Ann Heche ..
"Well, apparently RoseMary's baby is now all grown-up!" -- Church Lady
introducing Eminem onto the show.
Grade: B+

[SKETCH] George Sr. & Dubya Huntin'
This was probably my favorite sketch of the night. I just noticed that both
live sketches Will Ferrell has appeared in tonight involved him playing George
Dubya. The whole antlers bit was pretty funny. Ferrell played it good making
Dubya look like he had some type of learning disability.
Funny line: Dana: "Your ahead in the poles. I'm tellin' ya. We really got a
shot!" Will: I wish I'd shot that deer."
Grade: A-

[COMMERCIAL FILLER] Who let the Dogs out?
Wow, the Wallflowers have really changed their image huh?
Grade: N/A

[WEEKEND UPDATE] with Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey
Not too bad. It seems Parnell is now announcing these. It wasn't him the
previous two weeks though. Hmm.. I wonder what happened there? The "this many"
Bush joke was already used in last years Alan Cumming episode opening sketch.
The Gore-Rolling Stone joke went on alittle too long, though. It seemed they
had more correspondents this week than actual jokes. The Anna Nicole-Smith
segment didn't really make me laugh. Alright Molly, we've seen you play this
same exact character amillion times. You know, you really only need to listen
to the first three things Molly says, because after that, she just keeps
repeating them over and over again. But, still for some reason the audience
laughs hysterically. I guess I'll never figure that out. I did find afew on
the photos abit funny though. Still nothing great. As Adam KcKay's only fan, I
found his bit pretty funny. As soon as I heard McKay's name mentioned, I
expected something really bizarre. I doubt this dude knows Peter Jennings.
From his Iron Maiden tshirt to his filmcrew, this whole segment was hilarious,
to the ending where it looked like he was trying to seduce young kids into his
van to make a snuff film. Then to top it off Matt Walsh from 'Upright Citizens
Brigade' beat the shit of him.
Funny line: "It's okay, I just wanna get your kids on video talking about
Bush." -- Adam McKay to Angry Father
Robert DeNiro appearing on the show was kind of random. It wasn't exactly
funny but still pretty cool he appeared on the show. I was expecting him to
get pissed off any minute. DeNiro didn't really say much either.
Grade: B

[MUSICAL GUEST] The Wallflowers
Jakob is no Bob Dylan. I'll tell you that much.
Grade: N/A

[SKETCH] VH1 Vogue Fashion Awards
Not bad. Basically another sketch thats shown just to showcase the casts
impressions. Way to screw up your line Minor. "Hi I'm Cuding Gooding Jr."
Hmm.. Pretty good impression anyway, considering Minor's voice is very similar
to Cuba Gooding's voice. Molly Shannon didn't look like Gisele Bundchen. She
didn't really sound alot like her either, but she had alot of funny lines so I
guess that makes up for it. Maya Rudolph's Macy Gray impression was pretty
accurate. I'm sure Maya could sing better than this though considering she is
in a band, and her mother was a singer. Tracy Morgan's Sam Jackson was pretty
funny. Jimmy Fallon's Sting was more accurate than Dana Carvey's but I always
found Carvey's funnier, so I was alittle disappointed he didn't play Sting. I
did get a laugh out of Rachel Dratch as Cheb Mami though. She was born to play
that role. Dana playing Rudy was alittle bit surprising, he should have gotten
a bigger part in this. Since I'm not exactly sure what Rudy sounds like I'm
not sure how good this impression was, but it was funny. The impression
sounded more like his Dennis Miller. Man, can Molly do anything without
breaking character?
Funny line: Yes, we do have alot in common, we are both Brazilian Supermodels
who are addicted to shopping and didn't finish High School." -- Molly Shannon
as Gisele Bundchen to Cuba Gooding, Jr. .. "Why bring in all these beautiful
women when you got an audience filled with queers!" -- Dana Carvey as Rudy
Grade: B+

[SKETCH] The Golden Ribbon by Ching Chang
This is the last character I thought Dana would ever bring back when hosting
the show. I never thought this "chicken make a lousy house pet!" guy was that
funny in the first place, but this was still pretty bad. I did think Horatio
was pretty funny though. Dana even cracked up slightly at Horatio's antics. So
far this season, Horatio has been in a total of THREE live sketches. What's up
with that? Anyway, nothing that great in here. But its the last sketch of the
night so I guess its ok. Not as good as last week's Japanese Laverne and
Shirley sketch.
Funny line:(after Ching sings Tomorrow Tomorrow) Parnell:"You know what? I've
changed my mind, I will produce your play." Dana: "What made you change your
mind?" Parnell: "Nothing."
Grade: C- (Horatio saved this from being a D)

[MUSICAL GUEST] The Wallflowers
To be honest, I didn't really too pay much attention to this song.
Grade: N/A

[GOODNIGHT]
Looks like NBC's back to it's old tricks of cutting these before the credits
even show up.

[OVERALL]
I was expecting this episode to be a little better than it was, but it still
wasn't too bad. Dana could have been given some better material. I see that
Charlize Theron will be hosting in afew weeks. I've seen afew movies with her
and I can't say that I'm a big fan of hers, but who knows. Paul Simon should
host instead of just being musical guest, maybe they'll use him in a sketch,
but I doubt it.


Episode Review written by Emmanual Goldstein


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